Harbours and Hinterlands: Experiencing the Sea in Mycenaean Messenia

Abstract

Mycenaean Messenia is considered to be one of the core areas of the Mycenaean world in the Late Bronze Age Aegean. Although it is one of the most studied regions in Greece, there is little understanding of the relationship between the people who lived there and the sea. Much of the scholarly attention has been focused on trade and exchange, colonialism, and acculturation processes such as Minoanisation, and Mycenaeanisation, but there is an opportunity to move beyond these paradigms. Many theoretical approaches have been used to understand the interconnectivity of the Aegean and the different relationships with the sea. World-systems analysis and network analysis both intrinsically rely heavily on the sea for theorising connectivity, and seascapes, coastscapes and islandscapes, as well as maritime small worlds highlight the connections between coastal communities. Studies of the exchange of material culture and iconography as well as Linear B documents can offer further insight into the maritime world of the Aegean. These, however, do not fully engage with the sensorial and emotional presence of the sea in the landscape. This thesis explores the maritime world of Late Bronze Age Messenia through concepts within maritime archaeology which have not always had the same level of impact within the field of Aegean archaeology, but approaches such as maritime cultural landscapes, maritimity, and the phenomenology of the sea can bring a fresh perspective to the discipline. This thesis brings together, for the first time, Messenia’s maritime material culture for direct and indirect evidence of a relationship with the sea and the maritime world from across the region. It then undertakes computational, spatial, and visibility analyses to establish the presence of the sea in the landscape while reflecting on what the lived experience of the sea was like for the people living in Messenia during the Late Bronze Age. It highlights the need for a deeper understanding of Mycenaean lifeways and their perception of the environment.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Max MacDonald: orcid.org/0009-0002-6179-0619

ORCID for Fraser Sturt: orcid.org/0000-0002-3010-990X

ORCID for Anna Collar: orcid.org/0000-0002-7274-2674

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